The 43-year-old from Co Limerick said she wants the outcome of the Cervical Check controversy to be accountability.

"I want to make sure there are protocols put in place where sanctions for people who make this mistake are held accountable and that the HSE is overhauled from the ground up so that people are held accountable and that this never happens again in any shape or form," she said.

Last month, Ms Phelan settled a High Court action for 2.5 million euro (£2.2 million) after being incorrectly told in 2011 that her smear test had given a negative result for cancer.

In 2014, she was diagnosed with cancer but only told of the false negative last September.

Stephen Teap, from Co Cork, whose wife Irene died last year after two undisclosed false tests, also addressed the committee on Wednesday evening.

Mr Teap expressed his anger that he has only been informed in the past two weeks and that his wife died without ever knowing that her smear tests had been wrongly interpreted.

"Irene had two missed opportunities for cancer to be identified in her smear tests either one of which she would have been still here today," he said.

Mr Teap said there was a clear lack of open disclosure and that communication was a clearly an issue.

"I have to give nursing staff credit who took really good care of my wife, clearly up the ladder patient care is diluted and protect, deny is introduced and that is basically what we've been seeing in the last few weeks when he comes to this communication or the lack of communication that we're being fed."

Earlier this month it emerged that an audit by the Cervical Check screening programme of 1,482 women diagnosed with cervical cancer since 2008 had found potential errors in earlier smear tests in 209 of the cases, with results showing no abnormalities when they should have flagged a cancer warning. Of the 209 women, 18 have since died.

The crisis has already seen the boss of Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) Tony O'Brien resign.

Mr O'Brien resigned hours after it emerged that an internal HSE briefing note that flagged potential errors in screening tests in 2016 stressed the need for a media strategy to respond to stories of women whose cancer diagnosis was missed.